


Midsummer's Day

by Elvendork



Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-05
Updated: 2013-04-05
Packaged: 2017-12-07 13:56:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/749282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elvendork/pseuds/Elvendork
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seventy years of Midsummer's Days; seventy years of life and love and change, and Lyra and Will keep their promises to each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Midsummer's Day

**Author's Note:**

> I don't really know what this is...more me trying to console myself after re-reading The Amber Spyglass than anything. It's the first time I've ever written anything for His Dark Materials and there isn't much plot, or any dialogue, but I hope I did them justice. Each section is 100 words; originally I wanted to do a drabble but I couldn't even begin to fit everything in.

  
_“I_ will _love you forever, whatever happens. Till I die and after I die, and when I find my way out of the land of the dead I’ll drift about forever, all my atoms, till I find you again…”_

~*~

_“On Midsummer’s Day,” she said. “At midday. As long as I live. As long as I live…”_

~*~

It has been a very long time since Lyra made her promise to Will. Fifty years, sixty, seventy; the decades slide past inexorably, slowly, absolutely, and Lyra grows up and eventually grows old. Her memory begins to fail her; she forgets facts and faces she once knew with perfect clarity, she forgets voices and times and sensations.

But she never forgets him. She can still recall his blazing eyes and his fierce gentle voice and his hands in her hair and the sweet taste of berries, the quiet beauty of Kirjava’s fur and the softness of it under her fingers.

~*~

Every Midsummer’s Day for seventy years, two lovers in two worlds meet in the Oxford Botanic Gardens; their bench wears away and is replaced; the plants grow, live and die around it; their cities change almost beyond recognition.

The lovers return every year to speak to each other, but never to hear, or see, or touch.

The first time, they each have to tear themselves away after much longer than the promised hour; it’s like losing one another all over again and the pain is as fresh as their first separation.

It never gets easier. But they never stop coming.

~*~

It becomes a welcome sort of pain, after a while. It is familiar, and it is all she has left of Will.

She keeps her promise to him; all of her promises. She lives and she loves and she is happy. But the pain is always there, with the memories she will never, ever relinquish, memories she relives in her dreams as much as in her waking thoughts. It becomes a part of her, one she would not relinquish even if she could, except by seeing him again.

And an entire universe away, she knows that he feels the same.

~*~

Lyra is tired, now. Her life has been long, and full of deep joy and vivid pain. And she is old.

It is Midsummer’s Day. It is warm. Lyra savours the cool breeze against her skin, is conscious of every beat of her own heart.

She sits at the bench with Pantalaimon curled in her lap, solid and comforting and _present_.

She takes a breath and fills her lungs with the scent of grass and bark and earth. She closes her eyes, and reaches her hand out, laying it on the bench beside her.

She smiles, and sighs.

It’s time.

~*~

Will strides into the Botanic Gardens with singular purpose with Kirjava by his side, silent. They step slowly but deliberately through the trees with no need to talk or even to look at one another. They know what is coming, and are glad of it, at last. He eases himself, joints creaking with age and fatigue, into his old familiar seat. His face is grim but he radiates a peace and joy so profound that those who see him will remember the expression for the rest of their lives.

He reaches out his hand and sets it on the bench.

~*~

Lyra feels a soft, gentle weight settle on top of her hand and closes her fingers around it without opening her eyes.

A universe away and right beside her, Will’s fingers curl around the solid, invisible hand beneath his own.

They reach the world of the dead at the same time and greet Gracious Wings as an old friend, and they tell her their stories.

They are still holding hands tightly when they reach the opening into the mulefa’s world and the last thing they see, before they fade and their atoms drift apart, is each other’s peaceful, smiling faces.

 


End file.
